Shogun's Water Box comes with two -8AN fittings welded in place for cooling lines. I had a local shop heli-arc in a piece of aluminum so I could tap it for my temp gauge fitting. This will allow my cooling system a place for the air to be purged out, since my radiator is mounted flat along the bottom frame rail in front of the driver.

I also decided to upgrade a few other systems on "Project 4-Link" over the winter. My good friend, Bill Shoquist, and I have had a lot of conversations over the years on everything from batteries to alternators to the Tuff-Tow he makes. We got to talking a couple months back about the "air-lock" problems I was fighting with on the dragster. The water pump I had was designed to be used in a "normal" automotive situation where the water pump was not 12 inches higher and 8 feet away from the radiator. He suggested I give his new Super Pump a try along with his Mopar water manifold. This will allow me to mount the pump along the frame, level with the radiator, and plumb it into the manifold for conventional or reverse flow of the water.

With a Mopar if you do not have the stock style water pump housing there isn't a place to put a water temp gauge. I called Bill and he sent me one of Shogun's Water Boxes. Now that is a slick deal. I simply had a local welding shop heli-arc in a 1"x1"x1/2" piece of aluminum so I could tap it and put my temp gauge fitting in it. The Water Box also allows me to have the radiator cap located on the highest spot in my system so purging the air will be easy. Finish it off with a true coolant "recovery tank" and I think one session of filling the cooling system and I will be "good to go" all summer.

Speaking of cooling, how about the transmission? With the current setup we run, the car shifts into high gear while it is on the throttle stop (about one second into the run). When the stop opens up I am in high gear and the converter REALLY builds some heat. We are considering using "high gear only" for bracket racing and that will generate some heat too. I was telling Bill about my transmission temperature woes when I would reach the sixth or seventh round. I could not keep it below 240 degrees.

The problem isn't the temperature, it is the effect the hotter transmission fluid has on the trans-brake reaction and the car's ET. It is hell to dial once the temperature start going all over the place. He said to bolt on one of his "Kool-Kans" into the transmission cooling lines and that problem will be history. The Kool-Kan will increase my transmission fluid capacity by about five quarts and the internal and external heat sink fins will radiate heat better than a conventional trans-cooler because so much of our cool down is done sitting still. The Kool-Kan also has "stand-off tubes" in it to prevent the fluid from draining back into the transmission when it is sitting. It adds a little weight to the car but I call this kind of thing "GOOD WEIGHT" asit enhances my chance of winning by adding consistency.

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